Common madness

Deleuze, schizophrenia, common sense

“The madman accurately recognises discreet elements in the present, and also in the past, but he mistakes the connection, the relationship of one thing to another, and therefore falls into error and talks nonsense.”

(Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, III, §36) 

Deleuze was indeed right in seeing schizophrenia as the right model to grasp the modern world, for one because schizophrenic subjects are often characterized by a lack of common sense, and a rejection of it. It is the subject who questions, but never understands, always dissolving boundaries.

But more importantly, it is the combination of rejecting common sense, and a feeling of one's own incapacity to attain sense. Rejecting instinctual knowing, relying too much on those supposed to have precise theoretical knowledge. And as we know, theoretical knowledge is always specific, specialized. To the schizophrenic, the world presents itself as the royal tree of sciences, but with an infinite number of branches, and no roots. Confronted with it, the schizophrenic feels incapable of attaining knowledge, for even he knows that not all branches can be explored. He has two options, confusion, or outsourcing the task of knowing to someone else. 

Common sense is tied to being able to take something as evident, without elaborate thinking. It is instinctual knowing. The schizophrenic does not accept this, nothing is taken as evident.

It is better to be strong than to be weak, evidently. But maybe not, the schizophrenic mind asks, "maybe there is strength in weakness?"

The schizophrenic world is the world of hyper-specialization, and the world where people fail to distinguish what is important from what is not. Drunk trucker insulting minority more important than government forcing experimental injection on its people, as an example.

Common sense is in part the ability to establish veritable cause and effect relations without needing elaborate thoughts and reasoning 

This breaks down in schizophrenia. Person dies seconds after taking vaccine, the cause seems evident. but not for the schizophrenic. “Who knows, the person might have had other conditions, it must be a strange collision of circumstances.”

I. Sensus Communis 

“The power through which the eye sees is quite different from that through which it knows that it sees.”

(Meister Eckhart, Selected Writings, 106.)

Both in its vulgar meaning, and its technical sense, the notion of ‘common sense’ has always been an important one for philosophy.  We have many senses and faculties through which we experience the world and ourselves. With my sight I see, with my hearing I hear, with my memory I remember. But how is it, that for all these different ways of perceiving, I am able to perceive that I see, hear, and remember the same object? And how is it that I am able to relate all these different activities to one ‘I’ that sees, hears, and remembers? There must be something above and beyond the various senses, that relates the contents of these senses to one and the same object that I both hear and see, and to one ‘I’ that hears and sees this one object. And this something is what has been called the ‘common sense.’ A sense that perceives what is common in what the various senses perceive. What is common in what the various senses perceive? The I, and the objects that I can both hear, see, smell, etc. Without such a sense, there would only be a seeing, a hearing, a remembering, but no ‘thing’ would be seen, and no ‘I’ would be seeing. All the great philosophers of the past held dear to such a notion. Aristotle speaks of a common sense (αἴσθησις κοινὴ) that relates the contents of different perceptual activities to one another, Augustine speaks of an interior sense, Thomas Aquinas adopts the notion, Descartes’ speaks of common sense (‘bon sens’) as the best shared thing in the world. And Kant speaks of the unity of apperception, which relates all of the different perceptions to one transcendental subject. It is important to note that the common sense is not to be equated with the understanding. Rather, understanding is only one faculty which the common sense perceives, alongside memory, sight, smell, touch, hearing, etc. The understanding is a faculty alongside other faculties, all related to the objects of the faculties, and their subject —the sensus communis.

It would seem that this technical meaning of common sense, which I will now refer to as sensus communis for clarity’s sake, is very different from what we commonly call ‘common sense.’ But nonetheless, there are important similarities, both ‘senses’ being rooted in the other. For example, if I say that I smell, hear, remember, and understand, wouldn’t it be ‘common sense’ to believe that there is a sensus communis that allows me to relate these different perceptions to one underlying sense? You see, in many ways, the sensus communis finds its grounding in ‘common sense.’ And when I say that it is common sense that it is better to be strong than to be weak, doesn’t this presuppose that I believe that there is a sensus communis, common to all people, that draws this same judgement from all of our different individual perceptions? Our eyes are all different in their capacities, one person’s memory is better than the other, someone else’s hearing is better, etc. But there are judgements which are common. Sensus communis and common sense, both explain and presuppose each other. When we say common sense, we mean a correct judgement as we have spoken about, but we also designate a judgement that is common to many or all people. Again, this is rooted in the idea of a sensus communis, a sense distinct from the individuality of the various senses and everyone’s differences qua these senses, and thus universal and common. The sensus communis is the technical-philosophical concept that gives weight to our notion of common sense.  One could say, that we have intuitive knowledge of common sense, and the sensus communis is the transcendental pre-condition for this common sense to exist. 

We usually understand common sense to be this basic capacity to form good judgements without needing elaborate reasoning, most often concerning practical and everyday matters, a capacity which we take to be (almost) universal, or at least we believe it should be. Hence, when someone says something that doesn’t accord with common sense, we often react vehemently, as the person shows to be lacking in even the most basic and common of human abilities. This common sense allows us to judge what is right and what is wrong at each moment, without needing to think about it for too long. Common sense is automatic. And this it shares with the notion of sensus communis. I do not need to consciously think about relating the sound of this bird and the sight of this bird to one and the same bird. And I do not need to think about if these different perceptions are perceived by one and the same subject. All of this takes place automatically, I have no control over it, and it doesn’t listen to my wishes. However much I try, I cannot help but relate these perceptions to the same object, and take them as happening to the same subject. 

Nothing, says Descartes, is more common than common sense. Some might be blind, others might be deaf, some might not even be capable of reasoning, or lack the faculty of memory. But all are in possession of a sensus communis that unites all the faculties that one has, however small in number these might be, however weak they might be. 

II.1. Common madness 

It is to the credit of the fruitful interplay between philosophy and psychoanalysis in the past two centuries that the, by then largely Cartesian, idea of a shared common sense has come to crumble. From Freud’s study of the mad Schreber, Binswanger’s grand phenomenological studies of schizophrenia, Lacan’s confronting of philosophy and psychopathology, and Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘schizo-analysis’, it is shown that not all subjects have such a thing as a common sense. As in fact, it is precisely the breakdown of this sensus communis that characterizes many of the psycho-pathologies. In schizophrenia, the different faculties of perception do not necessarily relate to one and the same world, but each different sight, sound or memory opens up an entire world of its own. Worlds of phenomena collide, and there is no longer a stable subject to which these appear. The sensus communis, which acts as a mechanism of selection, allowing us to see what is common in all the different perceptions of the various senses, ceases to work in madness, and the schizophrenic is flooded with an incomprehensible amount of perceptions. It is too much, and everything being always new, nothing can be recognized that is common.

If it is shown to be the case that not all subjects have such a thing as a sensus communis, then must philosophy not admit that its cherished sense is not as common as it would have liked to believe? That the sensus communis is not as fundamental to human experience as it once thought? That perhaps there are degrees to which one has a sensus communis? And that perhaps, because some seem to live without it, it is not needed to explain subjectivity? 

The exception does not necessarily disprove the rule, but the existence of the exception can harm the universality of the rule, and the willingness to listen to the rule. 

Before we look at the case of schizophrenia, we should turn once more to the history of philosophy to see how important the concept of a sensus communis really is to the explanation of human experience or subjectivity. 

II.2. The unity of perception 

I hear, I smell, I understand, I remember, etc. We have all these different faculties by which we experience. But what allows me to say that ‘I’ hear, smell, understand, and remember? What allows me to relate all of these perceptions to one and the same I —me? This is precisely the sensus communis, the sense above and beyond all my faculties, that makes me aware of all of these faculties and the contents they gather. In many ways, the sensus communis is that which constitutes subjectivity, and perhaps, it even is subjectivity. It is what allows me to say that this experience, is my experience. This might explain why, when in common parlance, someone shows himself to be lacking in common sense, we react so vehemently. For it is not that this person is lacking in good eyesight, something accidental over which he has no control, or that he is given a bad memory by nature. No, the person himself, the core of his subjectivity is at fault. And this is the judgement we make when we scold someone for his or her lack of common sense. It are not your attributes that are at fault, but you yourself. Our perceptions change continuously, and so do our faculties of perception. Today my memory might be a little bit stronger or weaker than yesterday, or my eyesight might be a little bit worse than a few years ago, because perhaps I have been sitting in front of a screen more often, and have seen a little bit less sunlight. And hence, when I make a mistake concerning sight, I can always blame these circumstances for my mistake. But when it comes to ‘common sense’, that which always remains throughout the various alterations afflicting my senses, there is no excuse to hide behind. 

The question arises, is the sensus communis the pre-condition for experience? Or is it that which makes experience mine, in a second moment? Do we experience because we have a sensus communis, or do we experience, and only in a second moment make this experience ours by way of this sensus communis? Framed differently, is subjectivity understood as he sensus communis the pre-condition for experience, or is subjectivity a result of experience?

Is there this thing —a sensus communis—, that allows us to experience things through different faculties? Or is there no need of such a thing, for there to be such an experience?

It is this second possibility, that Deleuze tries to show by making us look at the reality of schizophrenia. 

And if it is shown to be the case that there is no need for such a sensus communis to explain the experience of the schizophrenic subject, then why would there be need of such a concept for a ‘normal’ subject? Does schizophrenia not show, Deleuze asks, that there is possible a unity of experience, without a principle of unification (sensus communis) above and beyond experience?

III. Discordant harmony

“Every sense has something special and also something common; special, as, e.g., seeing is to the sense of sight, hearing to the auditory sense, and so on with the other senses severally; while all are accompanied by a common power, in virtue whereof a person perceives that he sees or hears.” (Aristotle, On Sleep, II, 466a10-15)

From Aristotle’s conception of a sense above all senses, to the variants in Descartes or Kant, and the I of phenomenology, there is no Western philosophy without a notion of sensus communis. A unifying sense that drags all the different sense-impressions together. And hence, Deleuze will claim that it is one of the most fundamental presuppositions of the Western philosophical tradition.

In his Différence et Répétition, Deleuze investigates what he calls the ‘image of thought’ of Western philosophy. What is an ‘image of thought’? We think about many things, and we think many things. But before we do so, all of our thinking is influenced by certain ‘pre-philosophical’ presuppositions. These are presuppositions about what we take thinking to be and what we take its ends to be. For example, we say that in philosophy we search for truth. This is what philosophy does,  we say. But before we search for truth, we must first pre-suppose that truth is what thought should search for. That truth is the goal of thought, this is an example of a pre-philosophical presupposition. Another one is the pre-supposition that thought has a natural affinity with truth, in other words, that thought can in principle grasp the truth. For why else would we seek to find the truth, if we do not first suppose that it is possible to grasp the truth by way of thought? 

An assemblage of such pre-philosophical presuppositions that determines how a philosopher will think is what Deleuze calls an image of thought. In truth, there are as many images as there are thinkers, but Deleuze claims that, generally speaking, there is one broad image that determines most of the history of Western philosophy. This image is what he calls the ‘classical (and dogmatic) image of thought’. For our purpose there is no sense in going over every detail of it, but some main characteristics of it are that this image believes that thought naturally desires the truth. As Aristotle said, “all men by nature desire to know.”(Metaphysics A, 980a20) With Nietzsche, Deleuze will claim that this is not a given at all, for in fact, many people do not desire to know at all. Rather, we seem often to be driven by a desire not to know. We do not desire to know by nature. By nature, we are entirely uninterested in truth, and very often, we seek to hide from the truth. So who desires the truth? Someone who has incentive to know the truth, who is forced to know the truth. A jealous lover perhaps, or the scientist seeking to get a promotion. Another major presupposition of this image of thought is that in order for there to be unity in experience, there has to be a unity that is itself separate from this experience. This leads us to the sensus communis. In order for there to be the perception of an object, of which my different senses gather information, there must be a sense that is no sense at all, but that makes sense of the senses.  As Aristotle says, “a common power, in virtue whereof a person perceives that he sees or hears.” 

For Deleuze, this is not so evident as it seems. For, he claims, we can explain such a unity of experience just fine without needing recourse to such a common sense, or a unity of apperception, or an I. Say that I am aware of a tree in front of me. I see it with my eyes, I hear the wind going through its leaves, I walk towards it and I touch it, I understand this tree to be of a specific species, I remember how I saw this exact same tree a few days earlier. There are thus multiple different ways in which I perceive this tree. There is my seeing, my hearing, my understanding, etc. This is a given, but how is it that from all these different perceptions, I am able to say that they all relate to one and the same tree? This unity of the object, where does it come from, if all that is given to me of it is happening through such a variety of senses? The classical answer has always been because there is a sensus communis, that allows me to relate these different perceptual channels to one and the same object of perception. What has happened here in this reasoning? The unity of our experience (we perceive one and the same tree), has led us to postulate a unity in reality (there is one and the same tree), and this unity has led us to posit a different unity in the subject (the sensus communis.) We have experience, and in order to explain this experience we posit first the unity of the object, and secondly the unity of the subject (the sensus communis) is postulated to make sense of this unity of the object. But of this sensus communis itself, we have no direct experience, Deleuze claims. Its existence is purely based on an inference. We postulate it to explain experience, but we do not experience it as such. 

We experience one and the same tree, so there must be one and the same subject experiencing the tree and making sure that it appears as one and the same tree. We go from the object given in experience, to the unity in the subject (sensus communis), and back to the object. The tree explains the necessity of the unity in the subject, and this unity explains the tree. This is, for Deleuze, the classical reasoning behind the idea of a sensus communis. 

You can see why, in Deleuzes portrayal of this reasoning, one would think that the sensus communis is a pure pre-supposition. We have no experience of it. Rather, we pre-suppose it in order to explain experience. And this will be Deleuzes claim: the unity of the subject as sensus communis is not given in experience, but created by thought. It has no real existence, but is a fiction created by the philosophers. There is no evidence for a sensus communis in experience, the evidence is only created by thought. 

If you are paying attention, you will notice that by attacking the notion of a sensus communis, Deleuze is also attacking the notion of consciousness itself. For, if we recall Aristotle, we read that the sensus communis is defined as that “common power, in virtue wereof a person perceives that he sees or hears.”(Aristotle, On Sleep, II, 466a15). I see with my eyes, I hear with my ears, but I am aware of the fact that I see and that I hear by way of my sensus communis. In other words, the sensus communis is the faculty of awareness or consciousness. It is that by which I am aware of my seeing, hearing, understanding, etc. This fact of awareness itself, wherein many philosophers have posited subjectivity itself to reside. 

Nonetheless, in everyday experience, we experience there to be this unity of the objects of perception, and this unity of the subject. Whatever I might think, I cannot help but relate my perceptions to self-same objects, and I cannot help but relate my perceptions to myself. This all happens automatically. There is this automatic existence of a certain unity. Deleuze does not argue with this, but what he does say is that there is no ‘common power’, a sensus communis, that exists above and beyond experience, needed in order to explain the unity of experience. 

But if there is no sensus communis above and beyond this experience, then how does Deleuze explain this experienced unity? How does he explain that we automatically relate our different perceptions to self-same objects, and to our selves? 

The idea of a sensus communis was presupposed on the conviction that for there to be unity in the contents of the different faculties by which I experience, there must be a unity that is itself separate from these faculties. For there to be the experience of unity, there must be a unity separate from this experience, but present in all experience. And thus, there is a harmony between all the faculties by which we experience, a harmony created because there is a unity separate from these faculties. A diversity of senses, and one sensus communis. Our experience is like a musical concert, each sense or faculty representing a different instrument, and a harmony is created because there is one conductor. But this conductor, Deleuze claims, he is not necessary to explain the unity of experience. All these different musicians, they have no need of a conductor to create a harmony. Each playing their own instrument, there can naturally arise a harmony. Like how in nature, each animal, each plant, all life, goes its own way, yet still, there is one harmonious ‘system’ of nature, one eco-system. And in nature, it is precisely because every natural thing goes its own way, and lives a life differently from every other life, that unity arises. There is a certain harmony in the natural world, but no higher principle is needed to explain this harmony. Rather, it arises spontaneously from each natural thing going its own way. And very often, when we try to artificially impose such a unity on natural systems, things go wrong.

Applied to our experience, each faculty does what it does; sight sees, hearing hears, memory remembers, understanding understands, and precisely because each faculty is doing its own thing, there arises a harmony in how they work together. In the body, it is when each organ is functioning by its own laws, that the whole of the organism functions properly. When the parts are healthy, the whole is healthy. But this does not mean that there is a ‘whole’ that would be separate from the parts. Rather, the experience of this whole arises from the parts doing their own thing properly. There is no need of an over-arching unity to explain this functioning. Rather, there is a spontaneous eruption of harmony out of the different organs.

To clarify this idea, Deleuze resorts to a term frequently used by philosopher Kostas Axelos in his reading of Heraclitus. The Ionian philosopher is known for his saying that “war is the father of all things.” and that the totality of reality is born because opposites continually fight with each other. It is this strife, that keeps all in harmony. It is not that the harmony of this everlasting strife is created because of some unity separate from this strife, some transcendent God orchestrating things. Rather, it is this strife itself, this constant opposition between opposites, that is the unity or harmony. There is not strife, and harmony. Rather, the strife is the harmony. To explain this, Axelos speaks of a ‘harmonie discordante’, a discordant harmony. (Kostas Axelos, Héraclite et la Philosophie.) It is because things are in discordance with each other, that harmony is created. And this discordance, is the harmony.

Deleuze applies this idea to the unity of perception. It is precisely because all of our faculties are different, and offer different perceptual data, that a harmony is created. And for this harmony to be there, there need not be any overarching sensus communis. To give an idea of how this might work, Deleuze relies on a well-known passage from Marcel Proust’s ‘À la recherche du temps perdu.’ Here, the protagonist at one moment eats a ‘madeleine’, which is a small cake, and the taste of it ignites in him a whole array of memories of a time many years ago. The memory is so vivid and intense, that he can smell the flowers he smelled back then, feel the emotions he had, see the streets he wandered through, etc. The point is, the protagonist here had an experience, brought on by a memory, which was itself ignited by the simple taste of the madeleine. In this experience there was a certain unity, he saw the streets, smelled the flowers, and related these perceptions to himself being there years ago, as if he was there now. But how did this experience come about? It came about because of the simple taste of the madeleine. The sense of taste, being concerned only with its own business —tasting—, ignited the faculty of memory, and this faculty in turn ignited the other senses, giving the protagonist the experience of being back where he once was. Deleuze says that the unity of experience is brought about because the different senses and faculties are tied together as a chain of explosives, and when one sense experiences something, it can ignite the other senses or faculties. There is no unity orchestrating the senses, rather, the senses and faculties shock each other into action. The harmonious working together of a certain natural eco-system is not brought about because someone is orchestrating in detail how everything should go, making sure every animal and plant follows some plan of nature. No, each and every living thing goes its own way, follows its own nature, and precisely because of this there arises a unity. The wolf, acting only in its own interests, hunts other animals. And precisely because the wolf is acting out his own essence, the eco-system remains in balance. In this way, Deleuze invites us to entertain the idea that the unity of our faculties is not brought about because of some principle of unity, but precisely because each faculty is doing its own thing, and is different from the other faculties. And like the hunting wolf might force a deer into its natural behaviour of fleeing, so the sight, only concerned with seeing, might shock the understanding into understanding, or shock the hearing into hearing. I see a person, beautiful to the eye, and this ignites the interest in me to listen to him, to try and understand what he has to say. And more fundamentally, this person appears to me as ‘a person’, because each sense is doing what belongs to itself, my sight gathers visual data on the basis of light, this stimulus opens up my ears, and my understanding follows. 

In this way, for an object to appear through all the senses as one and the same object, there need not be anything common in what these different senses offer to me. And there need not be a common ‘I’ either. There is only a harmony arising out of different voices singing their own song. A ‘discordant harmony.’ And thus, to explain this harmony or unity of experience, we also no longer need to rely on a sensus communis residing in the subject, for the discordant workings of the various senses are enough to create unity.

Because of this harmony, which is truly present, a ‘sensus communis’ seems so evident, yet it need not be for Deleuze. Just as looking at nature and the harmony it displays, it seems evident that there should be a God orchestrating everything. But, there need not be anything above and beyond nature itself to manifest this harmony. All is strife and difference, and this difference is the whole. 

Thus, Deleuze tries to show that there is no need for a ‘sensus communis’ to explain anything. What is consciousness, asks Deleuze, but the result of so many minute perceptions of all the various senses and organs doing their own thing, working together to create unity? There are perceptions, by way of different faculties, and their various workings create the unity of experience in which I automatically relate perceptions to objects and to myself. Note that this explanation is very different from the classical explanation, which said that such a unity (sensus communis) already had to be there for such a unity of experience to be perceived. The sensus communis does not explain the unity of experience, says Deleuze, rather, the unity of experience is explained by experience. And nothing above and beyond experience is needed to explain anything. Deleuze speaks often of his philosophy as a superior and ‘transcendental empiricism.’ Which, among many other things, means that he seeks to explain the transcendental categories that explain experience from out of experience itself. He does not rely on a-priori categories of understanding as in Kant for example, rather, nothing is ‘a priori’, except for experience itself. In other words, experience needs no prior existing conditions to unfold itself in a unitary manner, rather, experience creates its own condition. Or, experience is the condition of experience. Deleuze is critical of the entire idea that there need to be a-priori categories outside of experience to explain experience.

Meister Eckhart writes that “the power through which the eye sees is quite different from that through which it knows that it sees.” But Deleuze would reply, that the power through which the eye sees, and the power through which the ear hears, and every other power, are precisely the powers that create the power through which we know that we see, hear, etc. The power through which we know that we see is not so much different from the power through which the eye sees, as that it is the result of the powers through which the eye sees, the ear hears, etc, working together. 

We have awareness, evidently. But the question is if this power of awareness exists above and beyond our various senses, whether it exists above and beyond experience, or whether it is only the result of it. And this is Deleuze’s claim; there is no sensus communis needed to explain the existence of a unity of experience within a diversity of sense-impressions. This diversity of sense-impressions is enough by itself to create unity. 

IV. Schizophrenia

“He thought that it must be a feeling of endless bliss to be in contact with the profound life of every form, to have a soul for rocks, metals, water, and plants, to take into himself, as in a dream, every element of nature, like flowers that breathe with the waxing and waning of the moon.”

(Georg Büchner, Lenz, in Complete Plays and Prose, trans. Carl Richard Mueller. New York: Hill & Wang, 1963. 141) 

To further explain how this ‘discordant harmony’ would work, Deleuze looks at the phenomenon of schizophrenia. How does the schizophrenic subject experience the world and himself? 

Schizophrenia is characterized by a general dissolution of boundaries between the subject and the world. The barriers between oneself and what one experiences in the world fade, as the thoughts of someone else penetrate one’s head as if they were one’s own, and the innocent sound of a bird is felt painfully underneath one’s skin. In general, the self becomes porous. Until in extreme cases, it becomes superflous to even speak of a self, as there are only processes of feeling, hearing, seeing. “It breathes, it heats, it eats.” read the opening lines of Deleuze’s L’Anti-Œdipe. (AO, 1) This is the experience of schizophrenia, “there is no such thing as either man or nature now, only a process that produces the one within the other.” (AO, 2)

What this means is that there is no longer a difference between the experiences of the senses, and a subject experiencing them. “the self and the non-self, outside and inside, no longer have any meaning whatsoever.” (AO, 2) No longer a sensus communis, to choose what is common and to be paid attention to within the input of the senses, but an unstoppable cascade of ever new perceptions. 

In the classical idea of a sensus communis, Deleuze sees what he takes to be one of the fundamental presuppositions of the ‘dogmatic image of thought’; ‘recognition.’ The senses give us all sorts of inputs, and the sensus communis recognizes in these inputs what is common in them. For example, that they all represent a tree. But what is it, that we recognize? We can only recognize what we have already seen before. We recognize this thing as a tree, because we have already seen trees before. And what we perceive now seems to resemble what we have seen before. On the basis of this resemblance, we posit that we are seeing a tree. And in this way, Deleuze looks quite negatively at this notion of a sensus communis. For, it being the organ of recognition, does it not stand in the way of thought? In the sense that it allows us only to think what we have already seen or thought before, every time we encounter something new, fitting it nicely into what we already knew, and discarding what is different and doesn’t fit. In this way, Deleuze thinks, the sensus communis prevents us from seeing what is new and unique in every situation, and it prevents us from having original thoughts. The influence of Nietzsche is evident here. Nietzsche speaks at length about the positive ‘power of forgetting’. Memory is a great faculty, but very often, to go forward in life, we need to forget. We need to forgive others and ourselves to move on, and we need to forget what we once thought, to be able to think new and better thoughts. We need to forget old habits, and be able to adopt new ones. And in the mind of Deleuze, the sensus communis comes to stand for this conservative and harmful power of memory, clinging to what is stale and what prevents life from going its way. The sensus communis is not only a philosophical fiction, created out of a lack of faith in the senses to create their own unity from scratch, it is also an idea that once implanted in our minds, gets in the way of creative thought. 

The sensus communis acts as a sort of filter, allowing us to have clear sight of what we can recognize, and allowing us to discard what isn’t of importance. Without such a filter, we would be entirely overwhelmed by the senses, every single detail taking up the entirety of our attention, making it impossible to see or think clearly. But precisely this is the experience of schizophrenia. Experience without a filter, the senses no longer protected by a common sense, but all opened up to the enormous intensity and diversity of experience. 

In trying to show that it is possible to have experience without a sensus communis, Deleuze has tried to show that a sensus communis is not a fundamental a priori category of experience. For, as schizophrenia shows, there is the possibility of experience without it. An experience in which there is no sensus communis to select what is common to the senses, but in which all the diversity of sensory input is felt in its full force. An experience in which nothing is recognized, but everything is experienced as a new and singular experience entirely.

V. Dissensus communis 

I set out to speak about what we call ‘common sense’, but I have only spoken about this ‘sensus communis’ in its technical sense, and Deleuze’s attempt to deconstruct this most ancient of concepts. But these matters are not unrelated. For what is it, that we call ‘common sense’? Generally we mean something like the ability to pass judgment on something without needing elaborate reasoning. Intuitive judgement or knowledge. Or, we mean a judgement shared by a community of people. It is on the first aspect that I would like to focus. For many judgements common to people are not of the order of the first aspect of common sense. For example scientific truths, in truth only known by specialists, but having become common sense for almost everyone. The theory of relativity is quite common to many people, but very little people actually know it by way of their own ‘common sense’. These types of ‘common sense’ ideas are of little interest here. What I am interested in is the manner of judging that is called common sense. Not just any judgement that has happened to become ‘common sense.’ Common sense is then the ability to pass judgement on something without needing elaborate reasoning, and it is generally seen as the ability to posit veritable cause and effect relations, again without needing elaborate reasoning. Common sense is instinctual knowing. It is the knowledge, not of the learned, but of those who can think. And it is as Descartes claimed, the most shared thing in the whole world. Perhaps not that everyone actually possesses it, but in all classes of people, you can potentially find common sense. Farmers, bankers, academics, children, factory-workers, mothers, all can potentially possess common sense. You cannot say this about specialized knowledge. The intricacies of Greek history, only those who have spent sufficient time reading about Greek history know this. The intricacies of virology, only virologists know this. But this does not prevent the man in possession of common sense from judging on what he hasn’t learned. For even concerning domains of which he knows absolutely nothing, his common sense allows him to recognize basic reasoning, evident fallacies, inconsistencies, and it allows him to recognize when some claim doesn’t fit with what he already knows to be true. Remember the intricate connection between the sensus communis and recognition. Someone who has common sense is someone who has a strong ability to recognize. For every new phenomenon, he can immediately recognize whether this accords with what he already knows to be true, or whether it offers a contradiction.

As much as common sense might be different from the sensus communis we spoke about, they share the same form, and they work just the same. It is this sense that allows us to recognize what is the same in a diversity of impressions, that allows us to judge ‘this is a tree’, without having need of knowing all the specifics of this specific tree to judge that it is a tree. It allows us to know, automatically, without needing an elaborate reasoning or specialized knowledge. It allows us to judge on how a new impression accords with what we have already seen, whether there is an inconsistency or not, etc. 

What interests me is how the breakdown of the concept of a sensus communis in philosophy, seems to line up with the general disdain that the notion of common sense enjoys in our day. It is as if these two developments run parallel. In philosophy, with Deleuze as our foremost example, the idea of a sensus communis is replaced by the idea of a discordant harmony. And in our everyday lives, we are increasingly told that common sense is dangerous, and it is better to listen to specialized knowledge produced by experts. This seems to be the doxa of the day, do not listen to common sense, for it is merely the voice of prejudice. And in a sense, it is. For common sense is the ability to interpret new phenomena on the basis of what we already know, i.e. ‘pre-judice’, to judge on the basis of judgements already made in the past. 

When Deleuze seeks to destroy the concept of a sensus communis, this is accompanied with his claim that you should not rely on ‘common sense’, for if it does not exist in nature as he claims, then what is it? It becomes the concept of prejudice, more of a moral category, unexamined opinion taken as reason. A product of culture, taken as nature. 

If, as Deleuze claims, there is no such thing as a common sense, by nature, then what do we refer to when we speak about it? It cannot be a product of nature, and hence, it must be a product of culture. A mere opinion, having no ground in reason. This concept, that once it takes hold of us, serves as an excuse to spew out all our prejudices, our conservative inclinations, our lack of interest in what is new and different. 

And hence, if this is all the case, then none of the claims that this illusory common sense makes can be taken for truth. The ‘is’ leads to the ‘ought’. How we think what is, influences what we want, and what we do. For all the talk about the ‘is/ought fallacy’, this is merely what humans do. They seek the truth, and wish to mould reality to it. We eat differently, on the basis of what we think a healthy diet is. What we think that is, influences our actions and our convictions.

The transformations of a philosophical concept are not innocent for everyday life. Especially not when these concepts know wide influence.

VI. No more common sense 

In light of the past years, we lament often that there is a lack of common sense. But this is not the problem, there has always been a lack of common sense. The problem is that we no longer believe in common sense, thinking any claim towards it is not the product of reason, but merely of unthinking dogma, or of moral judgement hiding itself under the veil of reason. “It is not I that want this, it is merely common sense.” What is different is that we are not only confronted with a lack of common sense, but on top of this, with hordes of people no longer believing in common sense. 

During the unfolding of the pandemic scam, many well-thinking people, opposing the un-scientific dogma of so-called experts, resorted to the notion of ‘common sense.’ Every thinking person knew that lockdowns would not make covid go away, and that vaccines wouldn’t eradicate the virus. This was common sense, yet, no one in charge of policy listened to common sense. And sadly, many people seemed not to be in possession of common sense. All of a sudden, common sense seemed not so common. 

But what many do not realize is that the people you are trying to convince with your common sense, do not believe in common sense to begin with. It is not only that they don’t have it, but that they do not want it. For alongside the breakdown of common sense, there has also been a philosophical breakdown of the concept, as we see for example with Deleuze. This belief in an intuitive judgement, able to be made by all who possess ‘common sense’, this itself is under attack by modern intellectual dogma. 

Deleuze was indeed right, in using schizophrenia as the model to diagnose our world. For indeed, like the schizophrenic, we witness a global breakdown of common sense. And with this, a refusal to listen to common sense in those who do possess it, brought on by the influences of philosophies (like Deleuze’s) that discredit the concept of common sense. What is common sense, they say, except for opinion masquerading as reason? Common sense leaves, and common madness enters the scene. 

VII. The natural light of reason

“If, therefore, someone seriously wished to investigate the truth of things, he ought not to select one science in particular, for they are all interconnected and interdependent. He should, rather, consider simply how to increase the natural light of his reason, not with a view to solving this or that scholastic problem, but in order that his intellect should show his will what decision it ought to make in each of life’s contingencies.”

(Descartes, Rules for the direction of the mind, Rule 1)

In this passage from Descartes, we read his vision for the future of thought. To seriously investigate the truth, he says, we should not focus on gaining knowledge of particular sciences, but we should seek to strengthen our reason itself, so that it can show us what to do and think “in each of life’s contingencies.” Descartes is talking about the strengthening of common sense, the ability to judge on something’s truth or falsity, on something’s coherence with the basic laws of understanding. So that when we are confronted with phenomena we have never seen before, we can still judge, whether we have prior experience with these phenomena or not. We can recognize whether they accord with the general principles of logic and thought, or whether they offer a contradiction. It follows, that if we no longer believe in such a thing as common sense, we would only believe in specific knowledge. And if we no longer believe in common sense, we will no longer trust ourselves to judge on what we have never seen before. And we will outsource our judgement to those who do have prior experience with the phenomena in case, i.e. experts. What is interesting to note is that common sense was based on the power of recognition. But when we renounce common sense, do we all of a sudden no longer rely on recognition? Not really, rather we narrow the gap between what is allowed to be recognized. Judgement is always the evaluation of new things on the basis of prior criteria. But where these criteria were at first allowed to judge on a very broad group of phenomena. Now, criteria become more specific to certain phenomena. For example, knowledge of certain general principles of medicine do not allow one to judge on every single branch of medicine. Rather, to judge on virology, one needs knowledge of the specific principles of virology. Not any doctor can judge, but only the hyper-specialized virologist. Not any philosopher is allowed to judge on questions relating to epistemology, but only the philosopher specialized in the sub-field of ‘epistemology’. Not just anyone can judge when their minds are up to it, but only those whose minds have already been accustomed to the matter at hand. Only those minds which are allowed to judge. 

It is said that this ‘common sense’, the ability to judge with truth on a myriad of different affairs, does not really exist. For, because there is no such thing as a non-specific intelligence over and above the knowledge we have of particular things, all knowledge would be specific. Because there is no sensus communis, philosophy says, all judgement is specific to the matter at hand. All knowledge is relative to the matter at hand. And the quality of one’s judgement, is directly correlated to the knowledge one has about the specific matter at hand. In other words, all judgement is relative to the thing about which one judges. And if for example I am well versed in different areas of medicine, but have no specific expertise in virology, I can not be trusted in my judgements concerning virology. For again, by doing so, I would be relying on my common sense to connect the knowledge I already have with new impressions. 

We should realize, that the ‘enlightenment’ program as envisioned by men like Descartes is very different from what is preached today. Descartes did not seek a reign of specialists, each human highly skilled in one domain of knowledge, and relying on others for judgements on every other domain. Rather, this is precisely what Descartes reacted against with his cry for emancipation in thought. Descartes saw what scholasticism had become, a highly complex system of ‘doctors’, each having highly specialized knowledge about certain matters of scripture, philosophy, or medicine. But the common man who wasn’t learned in this way was excluded from discourse, and he was not allowed to judge. But, Descartes saw, for all that these doctors know, they had a certain stupidity to them. They argue all day about the nature of the soul, they have read all the literature about it, yet they don’t even know that they themselves exist! Hence, the power of Descartes’ ‘I think, I am’ at the time. So confused by all their reading, they end up not knowing anything at all. And thus, Descartes proposed, we should refrain from developing specialized knowledge for a while, and first focus on the cultivation of common sense. We should seek the general principles of thought, that allow us to judge with relative accuracy on whatever it is that might cross our path. It is precisely this that has been reversed in our time.

It is of value to read and re-read these passages like the one from Descartes, to remind ourselves that the original project of ‘scientific’ enlightenment as envisioned first by Descartes, and later by Kant, does not necessarily lead to the technocratic horrors of hyper-specialization that we see today. Rather, their project was meant to prevent such a thing from happening. Dare to think, which means, dare to make use of your common sense. Dare to trust your own judgement, for you are well enough equipped with a common sense, to judge on whatever it is that you might encounter. And before anything else, you should seek to strengthen this common sense, this ‘natural light of reason’. This was the original message.  

Our knowing is scattered, and knowing nothing, we are forced to let others do the knowing for us. And on top of this, we are told that this is a good thing. 

VIII. Schizophrenia and society

“If schizophrenia appears as the malady of our time, this is not because of certain generalities in our modes of life, but in function of certain very precise mechanisms of an economic, social, and political nature. Our societies no longer function on the basis of codes and fixed territories, but on the basis of a massive de-coding and de-territorialisation. Contrary to the paranoiac for whom the delirium consists in restoring the codes, in re-inventing territories, the schizophrenic never ceases in going further in the movement of decoding, of de-territorialising. Schizophrenia is the limit of our society, but a limit constantly moved a little further.”

(Deleuze, Deux Régimes de Fous, 27. Own translation from the French.)

It is not merely in a metaphorical sense that we can say that our society is characterized by schizophrenia. I mean it very seriously. The world is literally becoming more and more schizophrenic. The causes for this are many, and they are not all as vague as that we are living through more complexity. Links have been established between the growing adoption of grain-based vegetarian diets, and the rise of cases of schizophrenia. And it is well known by now, that circadian rhythm disruption is not so much a symptom, as a cause of many mental illnesses, including schizophrenia. The increased dispersion of knowledge into so many specialized fields, the increased dissection of the human into so many little identities. The increased dispersion of economics into so many different avenues of profit. The dispersion of politics into so many different factions. The dispersion of peoples, the increased mixing of cultures, until no ‘culture’ is left. “Very precise mechanisms of an economic, social, and political nature”, indeed.

In all, our environment breeds a human lacking in common sense. Yet what is so interesting about this, is how these factual occurrences align with changes in philosophical discourse. As Deleuze deconstructs the classical image of thought in philosophy, it crumbles in reality. As Deleuze attacks the image’s postulate of recognition, people become incapable of remembering what was said on the media yesterday, only seeing the flickering messages of today, unable to see how they contradict the message of yesterday. The news, the always new. The less recognizable, the less relevant, the better. If for nothing else, Deleuze is worth reading because the philosophy he has created, is like a peak into the unconscious of our times. 

A new question mark at every moment, the rules changing every other day, this is the life of the schizophrenic, no constancy, but an endless dissolving. No I, able to recognize what is important in a a diversity of impressions. No I, and thus, everything becomes important, or nothing at all. For as we have seen, whatever this mysterious sensus communis is, it was related to subjectivity itself: the power through which we know that we see, awareness. But this sensus communis, as much as it brings something universal to a diversity of impressions, it is also that which grants a perspective to that which is perceived. It is that which makes perception particular. Without this sense above the other senses, to filter out what we want to perceive, and leave behind what is not of relevance, all perceptions would be equally important. There would be no differentiation possible, between what is important and what isn’t, if there were no common sense, loaded with memory, prejudice, knowledge, etc, to judge as to what is of relevance. Without a common sense, everything becomes important, and thus nothing at all. 

And indeed, in many ways this common sense is the product of culture, of prejudice, of all the different ways in which the past has chosen to mould you. Deleuze is perhaps right, in saying that this sensus communis is not a given, but is created through so many processes of individuation. Yet precisely this, individuation, letting the organism grow to have common sense, is in danger today. Through physiological causes, and through doctrines that teach that common sense is to be avoided. Teachings that teach that there is no such thing as health of mind, of thought. 

Anti-Œdipus, a work co-written by Deleuze and Félix Guattari, further develops the idea that schizophrenia offers a model for grasping modernity. Schizophrenia, in its most general sense, is related to the dissolving of boundaries, and the deconstruction of rigid identities and categories. It is ‘de-territorialisation”, in the vocabulary of Deleuze. 

And this de-territorialisation is precisely what characterizes our global system, understood as global capitalism. Whereas systems used to grow by reliance on fixed categories; for example, the city-state grew out of the cultivation of rigidly defined families, with a father, a mother, a child, and perhaps some slaves. Or in previous instantiations of capitalism, a product was sold by appeal to global categories. For example, beer being marketed for men, or certain household items being marketed for women. But now, the process that drives economic growth is not such a process of territorialisation, of grasping a group, an essence, or a category. Rather, global capitalism’s driving force is a process of de-territorialisation. The global security state does not grow by cultivating rigid social groups, but rather by dissolving such group-identities, it thrives by mass immigration from different regions, destroying cultural homogony, it thrives by destroying the family unit so that the child may be educated by schools and the ‘internet of things’, instead of its parents. And products are not sold by appealing to fixed groups of people, but to the highly individualized desires people have to be different from their group. Specific hormones being sold for each teenager’s own little delusion, more and more niche brands, the rise of entrepreneurship and having one’s ‘personal brand’. The malady of society is not the paranoiac drift to categorize everything and shut out what is different. Rather, our malady is the complete opposite, it is global de-territorialisation, global schizophrenia. And rather than offering greater freedom, it ends up in greater control. It does not lead to cultural growth, but to cultural stagnation. Like the limit of schizophrenia is the catatonic stupor. 

Deleuze grasps this in a text written in 1977, titled ‘le juif riche.’ The text is about a movie, ‘Schatten der Engel’(1976) by Daniel Schmid, based on a script by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. When the film was released, the French ministry of culture forbid any screenings of the movie, on the grounds that the film was antisemitic. This is the context of Deleuze writing the text. He finds the claim baseless, and thinks the movie should be allowed screening. The film is about a young prostitute living in post-war Europe, struggling to get by. She is taken in by a powerful and wealthy man, be it very corrupt, a Jew, referred to in the movie as ‘the rich Jew’. For showing this stereotype of the wealthy corrupt Jew, the film was thus seen as antisemitic and even fascistic, and many wanted it banned. The movie has no actual antisemitic content or message, and so the uproar seems to be solely based on the usage of this phrase: ‘the rich Jew’. Deleuze is quite furious, and he writes a text to protest this act of censoring by the French cultural institutions. It is going too far, this supposed anti-fascism, Deleuze thinks, and he makes the claim that fascism is not the enemy today, but it is the anti-fascism that must be feared in its insane desire to censor and control all discourse that doesn’t fit its paranoid little mould. For all the worst of characteristics that we like to attribute to fascism; control, totalitarianism, rigid policing and censorship. It is now from the supposed anti-fascists that it seems to be coming. In this context, Deleuze writes: 

“The old fascism, as actual and powerful as it may still be in many countries, is not the problem of today. We prepare for other fascisms. An entire neo-fascism installs itself in relation to which the old fascism seems like folklore. Instead of being a politics of war, the neo-fascism is a global push for security, for a ‘peace’ no less terrible, with concerted organisation of all our little fears, of all our little anxieties which make of us so many micro-fascists, responsible for stifling every little thing, every face, every word a little too powerful, in our streets, in our neighbourhoods, in our cinemas.”

(Deleuze, Deux Régimes de Fous, 125)

Aside from the all too loose and broad usage of the term ‘fascism’ here by Deleuze, where it comes to stand for everything that is evil, which I find very distasteful and un-informed, Deleuze does grasp something essential about our world. The imperative is not to conform to fixed identities, but to dissolve them. And it is precisely this imperative to dissolve, to de-territorialise, to destroy categories, stereotypes, etc, that has become the means of control. You see this in the arts, where in cinema for example, the critics used to dictate that your protagonist was of classical breed, engaged in a classical relationship with clear ‘gender-roles’. This was the scheme which the filmmaker ‘had’ to follow in order to create a captivating film. But now, this is reversed, and if you were to create such a movie, no critic would praise your film. Instead, you are expected to create a movie in which the protagonist is homosexual, transsexual, or any other deviation from the norm. In other words, the de-teritorialisation has become the norm, and it has become the mechanism of control.  Hence, schizophrenia is the model.  Everywhere where a more or less rigid category pops up, Big Brother shines his light. A man, a woman, a Christian, a Jew, no identity will be allowed to be spoken of. It is this drift of de-territorialisation that characterizes our times, says Deleuze, and the genius of power is that it will always find a way to exercise its plans. And this time, the way is schizophrenia; the destruction of common sense, the negation of the subject, the de-construction of all fixed categories, the imperative to no longer recognize, whatever it might be, but to follow ‘the new’, wherever it might lead. 

IX. Conclusion:

“Though the Logos is common, the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own.” (Heraclitus) 

“Madness has lost all but reason.” (Michel Henry) 

To designate this healthy judgement that we call common sense, the French use ‘bon sens’, literally ‘good sense’ and in Dutch we say ‘gezond verstand’, literally ‘healthy understanding.’ For there is something of health, in judging correctly, and something of disease, in judging wrongly. Something that is not explained by way of right or wrong, but pertains more primarily to two different ways of thinking. The one healthy, the thought of an organism in ascent, and the other sick, the process of thought of an organism in decline. 

Schopenhauer says that there is something of genius in the mentally ill. (The world as Will and Idea, III, §36)  For the mad fail to see connections between things, but perceive these things themselves in great clarity. And is this not what characterizes the genius, the ability to singularly focus on one single aspect of reality, and truly know it in its singular character? There is indeed this similarity, but the knowledge of the madman also has something in common with that of the animal, says Schopenhauer. Both types of knowledge are confined to the present. The difference being that the animal often has no memory so to say, except for the fact that certain impressions can be imprinted on the animal, so that by instinct it will come to know that it must flee when it sees this impression again. But it has no memory in the sense of recollection, of all the time that has passed in between. The madman however does have a past, he does have a memory, but it is not the memory of real history, but rather an “abstract past” that exists only in his mind, and the influence of this imaginary past prevents him from “using his accurate perception of the present as the animal can.”

The West suffers from an epidemic of madness in this regard. How many know actual history, of their own land and of the world? And how many merely have a story planted in their heads by school and media, a story which they use to interpret the present, but which is nothing but an abstraction, a useful fiction so as to be able to orient oneself in the present. This story tells us, among other things, that democracy is good, and that we live in a democracy, that ‘de-territorialisation’ is the name of freedom, and that our politicians can be trusted. It is also a story that tells you, that your own mind cannot be trusted, that your common sense is another name for ‘fascism’, the evil of the past. The ‘genius’ as Schopenhauer describes him is similar, he does not live in the real world so to say. He has his own ‘story’, his life itself taking place on the borders between fiction and reality, allowing him to see certain phenomena from a unique perspective, a perspective not given by the stories we all share. 

The genius is able to peak beyond the veil. But when we can no longer connect the present to the past, we do not all of a sudden become geniuses. Rather, it is more likely that we become like animals. Contrary to the naive hope of the Deleuze of Différence et Répétition, the destruction of the ‘image of thought’, and the renouncement of recognition, do not lead to a more free and creative thought. Rather, it ends up in the worst form of schizophrenia; global catatonia. We have not all become geniuses, we have all become animals.

The animal, the madman, and the genius. The three faces of stupidity, the three faces of disease in thought. 

Before we speak about truth and falsity, and after we have spoken about truth and falsity, we speak about ways of thinking, ‘images of thought.’ How does one think, and what is the best way of thinking? And, most important, from what way of life does a certain way of thinking spring? 

What life is it, that has no common sense, no memory, and no I to guide it? What life is it, that has thought take its model in schizophrenia? Where does it originate, this global schizophrenia?  

This thought without common sense, this philosophy without sensus communis. It is all to easy to say that it is unreasonable. For in many senses, it is much more reasonable than the classical image of thought. It is purely based in thought, in reason, and in nothing else. It does not pre-suppose any harmony, any health or organization of thought, prior to thought. It does not presuppose any ends (the truth, the good), and it does not presuppose any natural affinity for the truth or the good. 

Hence, Deleuze and Guattari can write: “It is not the slumber of reason that engenders monsters, but vigilant and insomniac rationality.” (Anti-Oedipus) This thought that can take nothing as evident, but must question everything, must investigate every single phenomenon to the utmost of its capacities. This thought that can not select what is worthy of thought, for ‘on what criteria?’, and by this question is dragged even further into a schizophrenic whirlwind. If this thought is pure thought, if this is pure philosophy, then I do not want it.

And this, is Deleuze’s most important contribution. To have seen that thought needs an image, for without an image of thought to give direction to thought, there remains not pure reason, but only chaos, which is perhaps only another way of saying: thought left to itself. Perhaps it is true, that thought left to itself leads to madness. Thought needs direction, it needs to have a living connection to truth, it needs to be in principle capable of grasping the truth, it needs to have health of the thinker. It needs Ideals, it needs coherence, it needs common sense, in the sense of correctness, and an orientation towards the good, as the French ‘bon sens’ indicates. 

So, where will such an image come from? Where has it always come from? Why do some posses common sense, while the many do not? 

It comes to thought, from what is not thought. It comes from what shapes thought, but is not thought. From life, generally speaking. It is life that gives direction to thought, as it is thought that has led life astray. And from what comes this life, if not from nature? We are given direction, by the uncountable directions given to us by our nature, the millions of little inclinations, given by our blood, our environment, the light of the sun, our body, our constitutions, our true prejudices. Thought is, just as body is. But whether thought thinks with any coherence, or whether the body moves with grace, this depends on something else entirely. Nature, perhaps. 

“I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth and do not believe those who speak to you of extraterrestrial hopes! They are mixers of poisons whether they know it or not. They are despisers of life, dying off and self-poisoned, of whom the earth is weary: so let them fade away!”

(Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 6)

Thus speaks Zarathustra. Thought is given direction, form, and image, when man forms himself in accordance with nature. And when man separates himself from nature, the process of image-formation is cut short, and thought is left without an image, without guidance. Without any confidence in its own capacities to attain truth, without any reason to seek out the truth, and without the ability to recognize the truth when it sees it. 

Thought is nothing, without the vital impulse given to it by nature, by life. And it is this thought that we face today, flying high in all directions, but without direction. 

Zarathustra adds: 

“Like me, guide the virtue that has flown away back to the earth - yes, back to the body and life.” (Nietzsche, 57)

The thoughts we think spring forth from the lives we live. No thought is without conditions, without roots in the lives of those who think. And when these lives are sick, so too will thought be sick.

For now, this is all I have to say. On specifics, we will have to speak in the near future, although some are already alluded to. The poisoning of the earth, of the food you eat and the water you drink, even of the light, these things are known to cut thought off from common sense. When man is separated from the rising of the sun, schizophrenia creeps in. And when man nourishes himself on foods that have never known life, his memory crumbles. When thought loses connection to the one doing the thinking, thought might as well turn against the life doing the thinking. And most of all; when thought is discouraged to think, when common sense is told to be silent, only nonsense remains. 

When we reach this situation which Descartes too faced, where we think so much, but we cannot even recognize that we ourselves exist, common sense is lost. Where we are so dis-connected from our selves and nature, that we cannot even trust our own thoughts, our own experience, and we have to rely on so many different experts to tell us the truth. 

We can perhaps no longer believe in judgements that are common to all, but we can believe that the power of judgement as such is common to all. And this power can either be in good health, allowing one to confront each of life’s contingencies with confidence. Or this power can be sick, making one incapable of judgement, and reliant on someone else’s judgements. 

Common sense has been deconstructed, and the result was not the freeing of thought, but its very end.